Hate Crime Laws

Research Paper “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that” (Martin Luther King, 1957). It is essentially commonplace knowledge amongst the general public that hate still exists in our society and that it is a massive problem that needs to be fixed. In order to solve this problem, we as a society must focus on protecting individuals that are susceptible to hate, whilst also trying to minimize the hateful activities that occur in our society today. Laws protecting individuality will never completely eradicate true hate for a certain group of people, as the only way to perform an act of this measure is to change society as a whole.
Ridding society of prejudices and hate is
On either end are the extreme policy actions for any political issue. Between the ends lie all gradations of policy from one extreme to the other. The yardstick represents the full political spectrum for a particular issue. The essence of the Overton window is that only a portion of this policy spectrum is within the realm of the politically possible at any time. Regardless of how vigorously a think tank or other group may campaign, only policy initiatives within this. (qtd. In Carter
This is another example of how hate crime laws are flawed, as they can actually be unfair in the judicial system. “By punishing perpetrators of the same crime differently, they contend, hate crime laws privilege some victims over others”(“Hate Crime Laws: Are” 11). As mentioned in the quote previous, hate crime laws actually sentence people who had malicious intent to longer periods of time in prison, despite the fact that they may have committed the exact same crime as another person. In order to eliminate hate from society, we must, as mentioned by Martin Luther King Junior, use love to do so. Putting people in prison for extended periods of time will simply infuriate them more and drive their hatred and prejudices. A primary example of this in text is the the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Once the trial has taken place and Tom Robinson is declared guilty, Bob Ewell is still enraged despite the fact that his family won the case. The simple fact that it took as long as it did for jury to decide on a verdict was enough to infuriate him. Had the jury declared Tom Robinson innocent he likely would have taken out his anger on other African Americans living in the town. This example of racism in the book can be